


Plans (Ineffable, Great, Romantic, and Otherwise)

by bellagerantalii



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Obligatory Reference to Episode 3, Pining, Post-Canon, Taking Out Nazis and Saving Rare Books is a Love Language, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 17:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19300828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellagerantalii/pseuds/bellagerantalii
Summary: Crowley had a vague plan forseducingwooing Aziraphale. He just didn't count on Armageddon happening so soon.





	Plans (Ineffable, Great, Romantic, and Otherwise)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes hello Neil Gaiman and David Tennant took my favorite Good Omens character and made him even better.
> 
> I'm still not over the Blitz church scene.

In the year 2008, the demon Crowley read a book written by some relationship quack called _Communicating Your Heart’s Desire_. It wasn’t the kind of thing he normally bothered with. Marriage counseling and self-help books were entirely human inventions. But he was feeling lazy, and even though humans were the best at designing instruments of their own torture, they lacked a certain finesse that Crowley had in spades. He had vague ideas about a television program for the author, and from there would come a multi-million dollar empire based on bad relationship advice and possibly a multi-level marketing scheme. Crowley had invented multi-level marketing schemes, after all, and he was always looking to expand them. 

Imagine Crowley’s surprise when he not only finished the book, but the contempt and grudging admiration (for the tortury bits) he’d expected to feel turned out to be something more akin to pity, and a serious feeling of being “called out.” You see, Crowley had spent the last six thousand years trying to use the exact same methods this book peddled to woo a certain angel. He’d laid it all out in a carefully thought out plan. There were numbered phases. But his meticulous timelines had been scrapped over and over again because the object of his considerable affections was the thickest being in all creation. 

Unfortunately for Crowley, he’d been gone on Aziraphale since the bastard gave Adam and Eve his flaming sword. And when Aziraphale lifted his wing to protect Crowley from the rain, well, that was just icing on the cake. And no matter how much the angel bristled and blustered whenever Crowley showed up in those early days (at the Ark, at David’s coronation, in Holofernes’ camp), Crowley knew Aziraphale enjoyed talking to him. And Crowley, well, Crowley was a demon. Giving into temptation was kind of his thing. 

The vague contentment Crowley felt by popping randomly up in Aziraphale's life changed around 33 AD. Jesus of Nazareth’s crucifixion fucked with Aziraphale. Crowley could see it, even in the first few minutes of their parley on Golgotha. It was worse than the flood, or even the banishment of Adam and Eve. It was still unclear to Crowley whether this hick carpenter was actually the son of god, but if he was, _wow_. He knew god was ultimately a selfish bastard with too much power for her own good, but who lets their own kid get nailed to a cross? And, more importantly, did god just expect Aziraphale to watch? Aziraphale loved all things the way god was supposed to, even after living among humans for several thousand years. Watching Jesus languish on the cross _distressed_ Aziraphale. It distressed him so much that Crowley just had to stay with him for the entire six hours of the crucifixion. When Jesus’ followers finally took his body down, Aziraphale turned and walked away in silence. And Crowley walked with him. 

The angel was just too kind to actually put up with god’s bullshit, right? 

So that’s how Crowley ended up in a tavern in Rome a mere eight years after his last rendez-vous with Aziraphale. He just had to make sure his angel was alright.

\----

Crowley plays at nonchalance (although it comes off as broody), but he’s honestly shocked that Aziraphale’s been able to repress his own rebellious conscience yet again. Here he is in hedonistic Rome of all places, enjoying wine and weird dice games. 

But then he invites Crowley out for oysters, and it dawns on the demon that the angel’s become a sensualist. He’s living for what humanity creates, and for humanity itself. Heaven’s orders seem to have taken a very slight backseat. 

So Crowley hatches a plan. This plan will probably take several millennia, but, hell, he’s got all the time in the world.

**Phase One: Routine, But Jazz it Up a Bit (38 AD- ~~1200~~ 1352AD)**

Aziraphale is like a baby duck. A baby duck _wants_ the enticing breadcrumbs you’re holding in your hand, but you’re just a bit too foreign, a bit too unknown for it to trust you. It won’t take breadcrumbs from you, even if those breadcrumbs happen to be unwavering love and devotion. 

It’s the same thing with angels, really. You have to get them to trust you before they’ll accept things from you. And what do angels trust? 

Routine. 

Angels love routine. Routine inspires trust, and that’s what made heaven so boring in the first place. Crowley needs to be just routine enough to inspire trust. He needs to meet Aziraphale more often. And he needs to be just rascally enough to be interesting, but not explicitly demonic. Aziraphale loves a good rascal, but he’ll shy away from anything actually evil. 

So every decade or so after their meeting in Rome, Crowley will arrange things so that he just happens to be working where Aziraphale is. A pilgrimage spot in Gaul? They sit on a precipice and watch people walk barefoot up to a shrine. Crowley makes the rocky track just that much softer (pilgrims are gluttons for pain. Take away the pain, and they don’t have much) Sack on a walled city? Crowley helps Aziraphale get some innocents away from murderous barbarians. (More souls to tempt down the line. And besides, kids.) A famine in Alexandria? Crowley floods the Nile so that it takes out some farms, but not others. (That’s how you sow jealousy) Aziraphale gives him a look of consternation each time, but Crowley can tell he’s secretly pleased.

Aziraphale’s elevation to Knight of the Round Table (plus some orders from Below) inspires a more permanent move for Crowley. No more wandering, he’ll settle on this rainy, dank island, then. When he and Aziraphale meet in that damp, foggy glen (so different from Eden), the angel isn’t altogether surprised to see him, but he’s a little exasperated. 

The fact that Aziraphale doesn’t try to smite Crowley, even when he’s a white knight, Righteousness Personified, makes Crowley grin like a love-struck idiot behind his helm.

**Phase Two: Make His Life Easier ( ~~1200~~ 1353- ~~1550~~ 1602)**

Once Aziraphale stops suppressing a smile whenever he encounters the demon, Crowley moves on to the next phase. 

As a heavenly being, Aziraphale may have unlimited time, but he’s also a sensualist. That means that yes, he has miracles to perform, but his big leather armchair is just _so_ comfortable, and wine is, well, wine. Why ride a horse to some backwater when you could stay comfortably ensconced in London?

So Crowley comes up with the Arrangement. He proposes it to Aziraphale over a roasted quail and a particularly lovely vintage. After some protestations, Aziraphale eventually agrees. 

“Only low-level, though,” he says, dabbing his lips with a napkin. “I can’t have you going around performing anything flashy. It attracts too much attention.”

“I’m not stupid, you know,” Crowley says, defensive. In any case, he doesn’t have it in him to perform any big miracles. 

“No miraculous healings. No underdog victories. Prevent a canal from flooding, or make sure a rope’s sturdy enough to grab onto when a child falls down a well.”

“Got it. Now, shall we flip for it?”

Aziraphale calls heads, like he will again and again for the next few centuries. The coin does land on heads, so Crowley sets out for Spain the next day. While he’s there, he helps a farmer get his only wagon out of a ditch (miracle), convinces a priest to pass information for a rival faction at the Spanish court (sin), hides enough money under a hat so a milliner can pay her rent (miracle), gets a man so drunk he spends all his family’s money at a tavern (sin), and, oh yeah, gets the monarchs to look favorably on some Italian sailor’s proposal to sail West to get East. (Miracle/Sin, we’ll see how that one turns out... but probably sin and chaos)

Crowley comes back from Spain with two cases of Rioja wine. He gifts one of those cases, plus a sizable bag of saffron, to Aziraphale, who’s so happy that he almost forgets the whole Christopher Columbus business. 

**Phase Three: Camaraderie ( ~~1550~~ 1602- ~~1800~~ ~~1840~~ ~~1868~~ ~~1900~~ 1942)**

Phase Two achieves the desired effect: Aziraphale likes having Crowley around. They’re friends, even if they don’t put a name to it. Even if they still make jabs at each other about divine purpose and serpents.

Actually, Crowley rather likes it when Aziraphale calls him “You old serpent.” It’s starting to get _flirtatious_. 

Crowley could be content with this. They’re both based in London, they see each other every month. Often multiple times a month. Crowley always goes to Aziraphale, or they meet in public, since Aziraphale still has reservations about entering Crowley’s “den of iniquity,” but that’s fine. They have time, and Crowley’s happy to let Aziraphale set the pace. 

And then Crowley has to go and muck it up.

Times are changing, you see. There are so many revolutions going around (industrial, railroad, liberal, nationalist, etc.), that Below is having a hard time keeping up. Crowley is too smart for his own good, and decides to apply the methods of mass-production to his demonic work, and take credit for a few more things besides. This attracts the attention of the Head Office. Peppering him with questions, summoning him to command performances… it’s tiring. And worrying. Crowley’s making enemies just by being good at his job. 

Also worrying: however good at his job he is, none of it will matter when Below finds out about his friendship with Aziraphale. Gadding about with an angel, nevermind the motives (but especially with Crowley’s motives) is a big no-no. He’s already signed himself up for an eternity of torture. 

So he needs insurance. And he’s going to have to ask Aziraphale for it.

It’s 1862, and they’re meeting for one of their secret assignations in St. James’s Park... Crowley makes his fateful request for holy water. 

And he's shot down immediately. He says some unkind things to Aziraphale. Aziraphale says some unkind things back, and then the angel strides away in a huff.

It doesn’t occur to Crowley until several brooding years later that Aziraphale won’t get him the holy water because he doesn’t want to lose him. A very selfish reason. And angels, especially angels like Aziraphale, aren’t supposed to be selfish. Not about a demon, at the very least. 

Crowley should be pleased about this. And he is, in a way. But he’s not pleased enough to go crawling back to the angel. He’s spent the last thousand years drifting along at Aziraphale’s pace. Never taking it too far or too fast. He’s spent these years pining, grateful for the merest crumbs of Aziraphale’s affection.

Maybe Crowley is the baby duck in this situation.

Well, Aziraphale can shove it. Maybe a couple decades apart will remind him of what he’s missing.

Eventually, Aziraphale does break first. Specifically, he breaks in 1916, two weeks after the Battle of the Somme starts. Crowley sees him sitting on a bench in St. James’s Park, at their spot where the path curves just so. He starts to turn away when he sees Aziraphale sitting there, but the sound of Aziraphale’s voice stops him before he can get very far.

“Crowley!” the angel calls, and he practically runs over to where Crowley is stopped in the middle of the path. By the time Aziraphale reaches Crowley, he’s just a little short of breath. 

“Angel,” Crowley says, nodding once in greeting.

“I’ve been… I’ve been waiting for you,” Aziraphale admits, straightening himself up. He does, at least have the decency to look embarrassed. 

“Have you now?”

“Yes, I...I…. I wanted to ask you something. Are you busy?”

“Depends on what you want to ask me.” _Stay cool, Crowley._

“Oh. Right. Well,” Aziraphale blusters. Crowley kind of hates himself for doing this to him.

“I assume you’ve seen the papers,” Aziraphale starts, halting. There’s a sadness in his eyes, now that Crowley looks. “And I just… I just wanted to know. You didn’t cause this, right?” he finally gets out, pleading.

Crowley considers him for a long moment. 

“Are you seriously asking me if I started this whole bloody war?” he demands. He’s seething. War has never been his thing. It’s too messy, for one. For another, once you’ve started a war, Hell kind of expects you to keep starting them. They keep upping your quota of souls to claim.

“I… I… well yes,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley turns on his heel, intent on stalking away, but Aziraphale grips his arm. It’s the first physical contact Crowley’s had with him in years, and the shock of it stops him more than the force. Even though it’s an angry touch, it still makes Crowley feel indecently giddy.

“I _think_ I know the answer, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, angrier than Crowley has ever heard him. He hasn’t released his grip on Crowley, and his soft grey eyes have sharpened to hardened steel. “I just need to _know_.”

Crowley is silent again. 

“No,” he finally gets out. “It’s not my doing. It’s theirs,” he says, sweeping his hand out in a dramatic movement. He makes no move to get out of Aziraphale’s grip, but the angel loosens his hand and steps away, anyway.

“Oh. _Oh_ , how wonderful,” Aziraphale says. And he’s _beaming_ , the bastard. And he’s got that soft look in his eye. The look that Crowley thinks means he loves him, and not in the “I’m an angel and I love all things” kind of way. 

“What could have possibly possessed you to think _I_ did this?” Crowley asks, curious. And, somewhere deep down, a little afraid. 

“Well you’re just… You’re a rather good demon, Crowley,” Aziraphale admits, giving Crowley that glance, and looking away too quickly. Bashfully. “I hate to admit it, but you are.”

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, angel. War’s not my style, though,” Crowley says, smiling. And if he leers just a little, well, you can’t blame him.

“No, I rather think… temptation is.”

Crowley’s brain nearly short circuits. So, instead of asking “Can I tempt you to lunch, then?” he says something incredibly stupid.

“You’ll never stop praying for my salvation, though.”

The little bit of color in Aziraphale’s face drains, and now he looks a bit sad, even if there is a small, genuine smile on his face. 

“No. No I don’t ever think I will.”

 

Crowley _thinks_ that Aziraphale may actually love him. It’s time to move onto the next phase of the Plan.

**Phase 4: Woo the Bastard ( ~~1800~~ ~~1840~~ ~~1868~~ ~~1900~~ 1942 - ~~2000~~ ~~2010~~ 2018)**

What with 1916-1939 being… 1916-1941, Crowley and Aziraphale don’t see much of each other. Too many angels and demons hanging about, it’d be too easy to get caught. Crowley makes the best of the time he has. They see each other twice. Once in Chicago in 1928, and again a Red Cross aid station in Spain in the 30s.

And then comes 1941. 

Crowley finds out that Aziraphale’s going to be offed of by some two-bit Nazi spy ring, so he does what any self-respecting demon with an ounce of self-preservation would never, ever do-- run straight into a church. And then lay all his cards out on the table, so to speak. A big, dramatic gesture. Let the angel know, without saying as much, that he’s in love with him, and then wait for him to make the next move. 

When Crowley hands Aziraphale the satchel of books, he doesn’t linger to see the angel’s reaction. But he can feel that _look_. If this were a film, there’d be swelling, dramatic music, and Crowley knows, he just knows, that something has finally clicked in Aziraphale’s stupid, beautiful head. 

It’s further confirmed when, in 1967, Aziraphale appears in the Bentley, parked in the shadiest, grimiest part of Soho. With a tartan thermos (tartan!) full of holy water, and a plea for time. 

After that, they see each other every week. Often multiple times a week. And their...thing, their mutual feelings, are never mentioned. Aziraphale will occasionally call Crowley his friend. They’ll sit and drink wine and talk about humanity.

They become _godfathers_ , of all things. And Aziraphale is inching ever closer to thinking of himself and Crowley as 'us', a unit, a side unto themselves.

And then Armageddon makes everything go pear-shaped.

**Phase 4.5: Avert Armageddon (2018)**

The thing about Aziraphale is that, for all he’ll admit that Crowley is actually very good at his job, he’s never actually considered Crowley irredeemable. He is absolutely, 100% sure that when the time comes, God will forgive Crowley, and the Angel of the Eastern Gate and the Repenting Demon will fight side by side against the forces of darkness. 

Because for all his talk, Crowley isn’t evil. He’s a rascal who sauntered vaguely downward. He isn’t nice, or even “good,” no matter what Aziraphale might say, because Crowley is really only good and nice to one person. Or immortal being, whatever.

Crowley hadn’t accounted for Armageddon in his plan. He didn’t think it would take six thousand bloody years to get Aziraphale to the brink of admitting his feelings. He was convinced that by the time Armageddon rolled around, the two of them would be firmly on their own side. 

But the angel goes back and forth and back and forth in a way that drives Crowley insane. He gave Crowley _that look_ when Crowley proposed running off together, the look that has sustained Crowley for decades at a time. But he keeps refusing to accept, and Crowley drives away from the bookshop in a state. And by the time he gets back, the bookshop is up in flames, and he’s convinced Aziraphale is dead. Or that he was forcibly dragged back to heaven and is sitting there prisoner, too polite to force his way out. 

Either way, Crowley’s best friend, the love of his life, is just fucking gone. And Crowley doesn’t want to go to Alpha Centauri without him. Hell, he doesn’t even want to exist without Aziraphale, and how pathetic is that? 

And then Aziraphale appears to him, discorporated, and it must have taken so much effort, but Crowley’s angel (shut up) found him. And if that’s not a bloody miracle, Crowley doesn’t know what is.

Then they help the Antichrist defeat Satan, which is another bloody miracle.

It’s Aziraphale’s idea to switch bodies, which turns out to be brilliant. It saves both of their lives, and Crowley gets to freak out Gabriel in the process. And he doesn’t think he’s ever been more attracted to Aziraphale than when the angel tells him about making Michael miracle him a bath towel. 

They dine at the Ritz, and afterwards they saunter back to the bookshop. They sit like they always do, enjoying a lovely wine (and each other), and carefully avoiding talking about "us." Then Aziraphale makes some comment about Crowley being a wily serpent and master of temptation and whatnot.

And that’s when Crowley decides to lay all his cards on the table. For real this time.

“I’m not a master of temptation,” Crowley says as matter-of-factly as he can, despite the fact that he feels like he’s going to explode.

“Oh, and why’s that?” Aziraphale asks, totally oblivious.

“I’m not enough to tempt you.”

Aziraphale chokes on his drink.

“What? Crowley, my dear, what-”

“We’ve been dancing around… whatever we are for millennia. Millennia, Aziraphale.”

“Well we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Oh, you’re smarter than that, angel,” Crowley says. “We passed by ‘friends’ around 1602.”

There’s a pause before Aziraphale speaks again. He looks down into his wine glass, and then up at Crowley again.

“I suppose we are rather more than that, aren’t we?” Aziraphale admits. He’s quiet, but his voice isn’t wobbling. It’s firm, like he’s gathering courage.

“Yeah, we are,” Crowley says, sitting up straight on the sofa and leaning towards where Aziraphale is sitting on his chair. He reaches out and places his hand, very, very gently, on Aziraphale’s knee.

“I’d like to be done with the whole dancing around it bit,” he continues, watching as Aziraphale eyes his hand. “If you need more time, I’ll wait, but I thought you were gone, and after all we’ve been through, just in the last week… I’d really like to be done, now.”

Crowley wills himself to look up at Aziraphale’s eyes. He’s wary about what he’ll see, but Aziraphale’s eyes never lie. 

Aziraphale is giving him that look. The same one he gave Crowley at the Ritz. At the Tadfield bus stop. On the bandstand. During the Blitz. The look that says everything Aziraphale’s never been able to. And for a moment, Crowley thinks that’s all he’s going to get.

But then Aziraphale sets down his wine glass, and his now-free hand comes and covers the one Crowley has resting on his knee.

“I know it’s taken me several centuries, Crowley, but I think… I think I’m finally ready to dive right in with you.”

 

**Phase 5: Ride Off Into the Sunset ( ~~2000~~ ~~2010~~ 2018 - ???)**

Bless him, but Aziraphale’s “diving right in” is more accurately described as “wading in. With several deliberate stops.”

Crowley doesn’t mind though. 

After Armageddon Averted, after watching Gabriel try and torture Aziraphale in Heaven, after finally, finally, baring his black heart to Aziraphale, all Crowley wants to do is sleep. But he also doesn’t want to sleep, because he wants to be around Aziraphale all the time, and Aziraphale doesn’t sleep. 

But after nearly falling asleep on his feet helping Aziraphale put his bookshop to rights, the angel insists they go back to Crowley’s flat (Aziraphale! In his flat!) even though it’s on the other side of the river, even though it is definitely not the angel’s bookshop, so that Crowley can sleep in his own bed. Aziraphale even climbs in with him, his nose just touching Crowley’s and his arm wrapped protectively over the demon’s stick of a waist. If Crowley had a heart, it would be growing two sizes, like that one green Christmas character. 

He sleeps for a week, which isn’t nearly his record, but it’s the longest he’s slept at a time since Aziraphale become a regular presence in his life. When he finally wakes up, still groggy, it’s to Aziraphale humming and the smell of a chorizo scramble cooking in the kitchen. When Crowley shuffles in, glasses off and wearing a ratty t shirt he picked up at some punk show in the 80s, Aziraphale smiles ( _that_ smile), and hands him a cup of black coffee with a “Good morning, dear.” As Aziraphale does this, he presses a chaste kiss to Crowley’s cheek, and his face gets as red as a beet, like he’s just done something impossibly risque. 

Maybe it is risque for Aziraphale, and maybe Crowley wants to do a lot more, but he settles for catching Aziraphale’s hand and pressing a chaste, though very firm, kiss to his palm. It’s a declaration of love, but also a solemn promise to Aziraphale. Crowley will go as slow as Aziraphale likes, but he’s here to stay.

So Crowley keeps to simple hand holding, and chaste (though very steamy and dramatic) hand kisses, because Aziraphale is a sucker for those. And Crowley is just as much a sucker for the always sudden, always absent minded hand and cheek kisses Aziraphale bestows on him. 

They won’t have their first makeout session until 2021, and it’ll take another four years for Aziraphale to take off his (and eventually Crowley’s) clothes while they make out, but that’s more than fine. Crowley’s used to waiting, and there’s not a single plan (ineffable, great, romantic, or otherwise) that he has to worry about.


End file.
